Turkish Interior Ministry planning to dismiss all reassigned police officers.

Turkish Interior Ministry planning to dismiss all reassigned police officers.(TZ).

Having conducted a sweeping purge in the police force resulting in the reassignment of nearly 15,000 police officers since a major corruption and bribery probe became public on Dec. 17 of last year, the Interior Ministry is now preparing to dismiss the reassigned officers in the upcoming weeks, sources close to the ministry claim.

The sources, who preferred to remain anonymous due to security concerns, told Today's Zaman that the Interior Ministry is planning to launch a new initiative in which it will dismiss all reassigned police officers from their posts over the next few weeks.

The police officers had been reassigned on the grounds that they were linked to the faith-based Hizmet movement, inspired by the principles of Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. 

The government has launched a large-scale defamation campaign against the movement, which it has accused of being behind the Dec. 17 corruption scandal.After 400 reassigned police officers -- including former Police Chief Ramazan Akyürek, who served as head of the National Police Department's intelligence unit, former Muş Police Department Chief Muharrem Durmaz and Hami Güney, formerly deputy chief of the Ankara Police Department -- were dismissed from their posts recently, the sources revealed that the ministry has also prepared a new 1,000-person dismissal list on the orders of Interior Minister Efkan Ala.

The ministry has already approved the list and sent it to the National Police Department's personnel department and is planning to dismiss those on the list over the next few weeks.Read the full story here.

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